Only a few million iPhone X units may be available at launch

If you’re hoping to snap up an iPhone X there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that according to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo the worst remaining production problems (which apparently involved the flexible printed circuit boards for the antenna and wide-angle rear camera) have almost been overcome.

The bad news according to Kuo (as reported on by MacRumors) is that the problems have taken long enough to resolve that Apple will probably only be able to ship 2-3 million iPhone X units ahead of launch, meaning that’s all that could initially be available, so initial supplies may be even tighter than previously believed.

And Kuo has also cut his shipment estimates for the fourth quarter down from 30-35 million to 25-30 million.

On your marks...

In other words, if you want any chance of getting an iPhone X on its November 3 release date you should try and get your order in the second pre-orders open on October 27.

However, with production problems supposedly mostly sorted the only hold-up now is apparently in certain suppliers ramping up capacity and churning iPhone X handsets out, which means that shortages shouldn’t last too long. Kuo predicts that shipments will “pick up markedly” in the first quarter of 2018.

So if this is accurate then within a few months the iPhone X shouldn’t be too tricky to get hold of. But if you’ve got one on your Christmas list you might be in for a disappointment.